Role of a Community Advisory Board in Strengthening the Person-Context Relationship for a Positive Youth Development (PYD) Intervention with Latino Immigrant Youth

The Adelante project is a collaborative multi-level intervention addressing substance abuse, violence and sex risk among youth in a Latino immigrant community. Adelante is a key activity within a health disparities exploratory research center funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). There are multiple collaborative relationships involved in this intervention: The university-community partnership, the relationship between this partnership and members of a local county initiative (Transforming Neighborhoods Initiative), and the relationship between the Adelante intervention and a Community Advisory Board (CAB). The latter is the focus of this paper. Adelante is based on a modified positive youth development (PYD) approach; thus it centers on the promotion of multiple developmental assets as a prevention strategy. Moreover, asset promotion should occur as part of an integrated, ecological strategy that builds the person-context relationship, involving the “marshalling of developmental assets” within the community. In order to operationalize this aspect of PYD, we recruited a CAB from multiple constituencies to represent these developmental assets. Then, we instituted a systematic process for linking youth and adults who complete any Adelante skill and knowledge-building activity to CAB members who can incorporate these individuals in order to: 1) build community capacity (e.g., individuals serving as peer educators, trainers, leaders); or 2) provide direct benefit to the youth or adult via an internship, paid position, recommendation, or referral to a paid position. Data are collected on the number and types of community linkages created, with analysis conducted correlating linkages to outcomes.